Huckleberries Online

2 Cents: 15th Street Bike Trail? Yes

Posted by DFO

March 24, 2009 2:51 p.m. • 9 comments

Dunno if I’d be happy if the city banned parking on my side of the street for a bike path. I’d like to think so. I enjoy bike riding and generally support any effort by our progressive city to create, extend, and connect bike trails. I realize a proposal to eliminate parking on the east side of 15th, between Sherman Avenue and the interstate, is an inconvenience to the adjacent residents. But it would provide protection for bike riders as well as students walking to and from Lakes Middle School. The concept, according to Tom Hasslinger/CdA Press, is to eliminate the parking for a mile of 15th Street and paint bike lanes for both directions of bike traffic. I occasionally ride along 15th, north of the freeway, where the roadway is wider or marked for bikes. But I avoid the southern part of 15th as too dangerous. The City Council and Bicycle Advisory Committee will catch some static for this proposal. But it is a necessary step for bikers looking for a safe route to Sherman Avenue and maybe out to the eastern end of the Centennial Trail.

Question: How would you rate the access to bike trails in your community?

Nine comments on this post so far. Add yours!

JeanC on March 24 at 5:33 p.m.
Pretty good here. Once my bike is tweaked into running condition and the weather warms up a bit I have a nice easy commute into work on the bike trail. I can pick it up at the intersection of Mtn View and State 8 and take it all the way into campus, crossing S Main at one point. No having to hassle with traffic otherwise.
Stickman on March 24 at 8:07 p.m.
Any mode other than cars is a plus. I wish the whole downtown area was closed off to traffic. Then we would have many more people walking around and enjoying our small downtown area.
florined on March 24 at 9:36 p.m.
15th Street IS my community, and I bike it often, south of the freeway. The biggest problem is on the west side, where not only is there no bike lane but the repaving doesn’t extend all the way to the curb. Trying to hug the edge of the street means trying to avoid the sizeable raised edge of the patchwork…that’s more dangerous than traffic, so I just grit my teeth, set my red light to flashing, and thank goodness that (so far) the cars coming up behind me go into the northbound lane to avoid me.
MikeK on March 24 at 9:57 p.m.
Florine - please come out and add your voice to the public workshops and comments as they get scheduled (none are yet but after Tuesday they will likely begin to be put on the calendar and communicated). I thought of you Monday in our Public Works committee, knowing you’re a bicyclist and live on 15th there, wondering what it would mean to you. We voted to give the Ped/Bike committee and the City Engineer the wherewithal to begin studying the project in earnest and getting feedback, though nothing is set in stone as of now. I’m interested to see where it goes. I am all in favor of more bike lanes anywhere, but I want to understand the impact on the neighbors and other items that may crop up during the public process as we look specifically at 15th.
moscow_minidoka on March 25 at 9:45 a.m.
Access to bike trails in Moscow is, as JeanC says, pretty good. I just wish there was some sort of a north/south route, or that the old rail line that runs from Rosauers to Palouse could be turned into a rails-to-trails project.

Compared to a decade ago, Moscow has done an admirable job. If they could just get PERMANENT pavement on a few sections, and fix some of the hazards on bridges (metal edges an inch higher than the pavement… obviously designed by a pedestrian engineer, not an engineer with a road cycle), I’d be pretty chuffed.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.